Income at UTV Media dropped by 7% in the first 9 months of the year, with its Warrington-based radio division hit the hardest.
Revenue at Radio GB as a whole fell 10% to £37.1m, but there has been a pick up in the last 3 months (to end September), with group revenues up 1% and Radio GB -3%.
TalkSport suffered a 15% fall in income, when adjusted to reflect the absence of the Euro 2012 tournament. However, UTV said that this represented an “outperformance of the industry decline of 8%”.
Looking forward, the group stated that talkSPORT and local radio would likely continue their growth into Q4 with Radio GB showing a 4% rise on last year.
It’s also pinning its hopes on a good England performance at the World Cup in Brazil next year, as talkSPORT has also announced that it will broadcast live commentary of every match from the football tournament.
The deal with FIFA means that the station will commence coverage by broadcasting the draw for the first round groups early next month.
“This FIFA World Cup in Brazil will be one of the biggest ever. For both our existing and potential new commercial partners this agreement is great news and reflects talkSPORT’s continued investment in our product and our desire to grow bigger upmarket sports audiences across all of our platforms – on air, online, on mobile and on social media,” said Calum Macaulay, talkSPORT’s managing director.
